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THE 

Memoirs  of  Jesus 


ROBERT  F.  HORTON,  M.  A. 


«^ 


PHII^ADELPHIA 

HENRY  ALTEMUS 


COPYRIGHTED   1896 

BY  HENRY  ALTEMUS 


Henry  Altemus,  Manufacturer 
philadelphia 


THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS. 


"  I  esteem  the  Gospels  to  be  thoroughly  genuine,  for  there 
shines  from  them  the  reflected  splendor  of  a  sublimity,  pro- 
ceeding from  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ,  of  so  Divine  a 
kind  as  only  the  Divine  could  ever  have  manifested  upon 
earth."— Goethe. 


BETWEEN  thirty  and  forty  years  after 
the  Crucifixion  of  Jesus — the  exact  date 
it  is  not  possible  to  ascertain — the  apostles 
and  apostolic  men  perceived  the  necessity  of 
writing  down  the  memorials  of  their  Master's 
life  and  death.  At  first  the  things  which  He 
had  said  and  done  seemed  so  vivid  in  their 
memory,  and  the  call  to  be  constantly  pro- 
claiming them  seemed  so  good  a  security  of 
their  preservation,  that  written  records  would 
appear  superfluous.*  According  to  the  earliest 
tradition  it  was  Matthew  who  took  the  initia- 

•'•"It  is  necessary  to  remind  ourselves  that  to  publish  a  book 
was  not  so  obvious  an  undertaking  in  the  peasant  circles  of 
Galilee  or  Jerusalem  as  it  is  to  us.  The  notes  of  the  Lord's 
doings  and  sayings  had,  we  may  surmise,  been  long  put  down 
by  the  apostles  for  their  private  use  before  any  one  of  them 
thought  of  collecting  and  editing  them  in  a  connected  form. 


4  THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS. 

tive  in  compiling  memoirs  of  his  Master ;  he 
had  preached  chiefly  to  Jews,  and  when  he 
saw  his  way  to  proclaim  the  gospel  amongst 
people  of  a  different  kind  he  committed  the 
substance  of  his  preaching  to  paper  in  the 
Hebrew  language.  He  wrote  out,  we  need 
not  question,  the  way  in  which  he  was  accus- 
tomed to  preach  Christ  from  the  Ancient 
Scriptures  by  showing  how  this  and  that 
prophecy  had  been  fulfilled  in  Him,  and  he 
wrote  out  a  number  of  the  Lord's  discourses 
which  were  imprinted  almost  word  for  word 
on  his  own  memory  and  on  the  minds  of 
many  others  who  had  seen  and  heard  the 
Lord.  We  may  surmise  that  Matthew's 
preaching  had  never  attempted  to  set  forth 
a  chronological  account  of  the  life,  nor  had  it 
marked  very  distinctly  the  occasion  or  cir- 
cumstances of  each  event  or  discourse.  It 
was  such  an  utterance  or  series  of  utterances 
as  one  might  expect  from  a  fervent  disciple 
who  was  neither  a  profound  student  of  the 
ancient  Scriptures  nor  an  accomplished 
literary  workman,  but  was  overwhelmingly 
charged  with  the  spirit  and  power  of  the  Lord 
who  had  commissioned  him  to  preach.  It  is 
generally  supposed  that  our  Gospel  according 
to  St.  Matthew  is  the  Greek  version  of  this 


THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS.  5 

first  evangelic  narrative.  It  certainly  bears 
some  marks  of  such  an  origin  as  is  here 
suggested. 

Our  second  Gospel  had,  we  may  gather 
from  the  fragment  of  Papias  quoted  by  Euse- 
bius,  a  similar  origin.  Its  author  was  one  who 
served  the  Apostle  Peter  as  an  interpreter, 
and  jotted  down  his  reminiscences  of  the 
Lord's  life  as  he  was  in  the  habit  of  narrating 
them  in  his  preaching.  The  interpreter  prob- 
ably translated  the  Apostle's  Aramaic  ver- 
nacular into  the  Hellenistic  dialect;  which  was 
the  lingua  frajica  of  the  time. 

Our  third  Gospel  sufficiently  describes  its 
own  origin  in  its  opening  sentences  ;  it  is  a 
painstaking  compilation  of  the  several  memoirs 
and  reminiscences  of  those  who  had  seen  and 
known  Jesus,  made  by  one  who  had  enjoyed 
good  opportunities  of  communication  with 
these  earliest  witnesses.  The  fourth  Gospel 
may  be  left  for  a  later  stage  in  our  investi- 
gation. 

We  see,  then,  what  the  three  Synoptic 
Gospels  are  -according  to  their  own  claims 
and  the  assertions  made  about  them  by  prim- 
itive writers.  They  are,  as  Justin  Martyr 
generally  calls  them  in  his  apologetic  writings, 
Memoirs  of  the  Lord.     They  do  not  profess 


6  THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS. 

to  be  accurate  in  a  chronological  or  a  histori- 
cal sense,  still  less  do  they  lay  claim  to  be 
divinely  guaranteed  against  error ;  nay,  they 
do  not  even  make  any  pretence  to  inspiration 
in  any  special  sense.  They  present  them- 
selves to  us  as  authentic  memoirs  written,  as 
Justin  Martyr  says,  by  the  Apostles  or  their 
immediate  successors. 

All  the  difficulties  which  have  been  found 
in  the  Gospels  during  the  last  half-century  of 
stormy  criticism,  and  all  the  scepticism  which 
has  been  excited  concerning  them,  must  be 
attributed  to  the  well-meant  endeavors  of  the 
Church  to  represent  the  Gospels  as  some- 
thing more  than  they  claim  to  be.  The  evan- 
gelists have  been  represented  as  the  mere 
amanuenses  of  the  Spirit  of  God  ;  their  infal- 
libility has  been  made  a  point  of  faith ;  to 
question  it  has  been  represented  as  under- 
mining the  Gospel  itself.  The  intention  was 
good ;  the  idea  was  that  in  honoring  the 
writers  we  should  be  honoring  Him  of  whom 
they  wrote,  and  that  by  artificially  surround- 
ing their  authority  with  a  mysterious  sanc- 
tion of  inspiration  we  should  protect  and  es- 
tablish the  truth  which  they  deliver.  It  is  as 
if  some  ardent  Cromwellians,  eager  to  secure 
the  reputation  of  their  hcio,  had  insinuated 


THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS.  7 

the  dogma  that  Carlyle's  life  of  him  was  in- 
fallibly inspired.  But  the  well-meant  en- 
deavor has  entirely  failed  of  its  object.  Well 
meant,  no  doubt  it  was,  but  it  was  unneces- 
sary, and  has  proved  to  be  mischievous.  For 
every  fault  of  the  narratives,  every  obscurity, 
or  trivial  contradiction,  has  thus  been  charged 
upon  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  antagonists  of  the 
faith,  instead  of  being  confronted  with  the 
obvious  truths  contained  in  the  Gospels,  have 
been  encouraged  to  lay  hold  of  the  difficulties 
in  them,  and  to  rest  their  rejection  of  the 
whole  on  their  dubiety  concerning  a  part.  In 
our  own  day  a  well-known  scientific  writer 
has  been  allowed  to  draw  the  attention  of 
multitudes  from  the  essential  issues  by  criti- 
cising the  possession  of  the  swine  at  Gadara, 
and  orthodoxy,  committed  to  its  great  dogma, 
has  felt  bound  to  vindicate  the  story  against 
the  criticism  with  the  desperate  feeling  that, 
if  one  statement  in  the  Gospels  is  challenged, 
Christ  and  His  salvation  are  called  in  ques- 
tion. Indeed,  few  dogmas  could  have  been 
more  unfortunate  than  this  dogma  about  the 
infallible  inspiration  of  the  evangelists.  For 
at  last  the  quiet  question  is  put,  even  by  rev- 
erent believers.  What  proof  have  you  of  this 
infallible  inspiration  .?    Do  the  writers  claim 


8  THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS, 

it  themselves  ?  No.  Do  other  writers  of  the 
New  Testament,  St.  Paul,  or  St.  Peter,  claim 
it  for  them  }  No.  On  what,  then,  does  it 
rest  .-^  And  at  last  the  poor  and  insufficient 
answer  is  forced  to  come  out.  We  have  no 
reason  to  give  except  the  arbitrary  dogma  of 
the  Church,  and  we  suppose  the  dogma  was 
invented  as  a  security  for  the  truth  of  Jesus. 
Now,  the  simple  fact  seems  to  be  this  :  the 
record  of  Jesus,  His  Person,  His  ways.  His 
words,  His  works,  is  so  marvellous,  so  unique, 
so  Divine,  that  it  has  cast  its  glory  over  the 
recorders.  Writings  which  tell  so  mighty  a 
tale  must  themselves  be  mighty.  The  vehicle 
of  such  a  revelation  must  surely  be  itself  a 
revelation.  This  is  where  the  mistake  has 
arisen.  But  the  wisdom  of  God  has  decided 
far  otherwise.  The  greatest  revelation  of  all, 
the  Person  and  Life  and  Death  of  Jesus,  the 
Son  of  God,  requires  for  its  record  nothing 
but  the  simple  witness  of  those  who  saw  and 
heard.  There  is  no  need  of  an  Isaiah,  nor 
even  of  a  Paul.  The  splendor  of  human  ge- 
nius, the  interposition  of  exceptional  gifts, 
would  here  be  out  of  place,  and  would 
obscure  rather  than  illustrate  the  matter  in 
hand.  Let  the  great  Fact — so  the  wisdom  of 
God  seems  to  say — be  simply  reflected  in  the 


THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS.  9 

unimaginative,  uncreative  minds  of  a  few  un- 
lettered men;  let  their  limited  intelligence 
be  burdened  only  with  the  task  of  remember- 
ing, and  let  their  memories  find  a  way  into 
writing  as  time  goes  on,  so  that  the  portrait 
of  the  Saviour,  taken,  as  it  were,  unconscious- 
ly, may  in  this  artless  way  pass  down  to  pos- 
terity. That  portrait  shall  not  be  the  work 
of  great  painters,  but  rather  a  photographic 
impression,  drawn  by  the  finger  of  light  on 
the  hearts  of  those  who  were  exposed  to  His 
loveliness,  holiness,  power,  and  love. 

In  taking  this  view  of  our  Synoptic  Gos- 
pels, in  placing  them  on  the  plane  of  unso- 
phisticated and  unreflective  historical  memoir, 
we  are,  it  is  to  be  observed,  only  following 
such  indications  as  they  give  themselves.  In 
surrendering  the  far  more  imposing  dogmatic 
assumptions  which  have  come  down  to  us  by 
tradition,  we  not  only  return  from  tradition 
to  Scripture,  but  we  quietly  slip  by  all  those 
criticisms  and  questions  which  have  in  recent 
years  been  directed,  not  against  the  Gospels 
themselves,  but  against  the  theory  of  the 
Gospels  gradually  developed  by  the  Church. 
But  those  who  slumber  in  the  lethargy  of 
dogmatism  start  up  with  a  cry.  If  the  evan- 
gelists are  not  divinely  inspired,  we  have  lost 


lo  THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS. 

our  Lord ;  we  know  Him  only  in  these  records ; 
how  shall  we  be  assured  that  the  records 
are  true  unless  we  are  first  convinced  that 
they  are  written  by  God  ?  The  answer  to 
this  cry  of  alarm,  which  it  is  the  object  of 
the  present  chapter  to  give,  may  be  summed 
up  in  three  brief  statements,  afterwards  to  be 
enforced  and  developed. 

First,  the  Lord  is  not  taken  away,  but  truly 
presented  in  authentic  contemporary  records. 
Second,  the  truth  of  the  picture  is  guaranteed 
not  by  the  writers,  but  by  the  picture  itself. 
Third,  the  whole  gist  of  the  testimony  given 
by  these  records  is  that  the  subject  of  them 
is  alive  and  is  among  His  people  now,  and 
therefore  we  are  brought  to  a  very  plain  issue, 
which  is  this :  if  He  is  alive  and  active  and 
recognized  among  us  now,  how  can  it  be  said 
that  His  reality  rests  on  the  authority  of  any 
ancient  writers  }  And  if  He  is  not  alive  and 
active  and  recognized  among  us  now,  of  what 
avail  is  a  writing,  even  infallibly  inspired, 
which  bears  it  as  its  constant  burden,  that  He 
should  live  and  be  with  His  people  to  the  end 
of  the  world  .<* 

In  a  word,  the  answer  to  the  terrified  cry 
of  a  disturbed  dogmatism  is  briefly  this  :  the 
Gospels  are  a  historical  witness  to  a  Living 


THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS.  \\ 

Christ ;  their  revelation  consists  of  the  pic- 
ture which  they  present  of  Him ;  they  are 
verified  by  Him,  not  He  by  them. 

First  of  all,  then,  let  us  steadily  realize  that 
we  claim  nothing  for  the  Three  Gospels  now 
under  consideration,  but  that  they  are  the 
honest  reports  delivered  to  posterity  by  those 
who  saw  it  of  the  most  memorable  life  ever 
lived  upon  earth.  There  is  in  them,  as  all 
readers  who  are  not  hardened  against  them 
by  dogmatic  presuppositions  have  observed,  a 
simplicity  and  directness  which  admit  of  only 
one  explanation.  There  is  no  trace  of  the  art 
which  is  constructing  a  work  of  the  imagina- 
tion ;  there  are  none  of  the  familiar  marks  of 
legend ;  the  idea  that  the  stories  were  the 
gradual  growth  of  legend  had  to  yield  to  the 
hard  fact  that  between  the  events  and  the 
records  there  was  no  time  for  a  legend  to 
grow.  Never  was  there  a  more  sober  histor- 
ical document  than  the  Gospel  of  Luke. 
Using  all  the  materials  which  are  in  his 
hands,  the  author  sits  down  to  compile  as 
complete  a  record  of  the  life  as  he  possibly 
could.  The  Gospel  of  Mark — we  may  well 
challenge  the  judgment  of  every  unbiassed 
mind — is  transparently  drawn  from  the  life. 
Let  any  one  sit  down  in  a  quiet  hour  and  read 


12  THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS, 

through  without  stopping  this  brief  harmon- 
ious story  of  the  pubhc  life  lived  by  Jesus 
during  the  three  years  of  His  ministry,  and 
the  impression  cannot  be  avoided — not  only 
the  subject  matter,  but  the  very  modes  of 
expression,  the  minute  touches  of  versimili- 
tude,  the  little  flashes  of  observation  that 
occur  only  to  those  who  have  been  present 
and  have  seen,  confirm  it — that  this  is  a  faith- 
ful tale  drawn  from  the  facts  themselves.  And 
though  Matthew  has  neither  the  vividness  of 
Mark,  nor  the  historical  manner  of  Luke,  it 
carries  an  unmistakable  authenticity  of  its 
own ;  it  teems  with  Xoyta,  as  Papias  called 
them,  the  utterances  of  Jesus,  and  we  may 
well  ask  of  any  critic.  How  could  these  dis- 
courses have  come  into  existence  ?  Could 
they  be  invented  by  a  writer  of  the  calibre 
of  this  evangelist  ?  Are  they  ingenious  pro- 
ducts of  the  study  and  of  the  literary  hack  ? 
The  question  answers  itself.  The  very  sub- 
stance of  the  first  Gospel  is  the  proof  that 
the  writer  is  simply  the  recorder  of  what  was 
said  and  done. 

Indeed  the  authenticity  of  these  unsophisti- 
cated biographies  would  never  have  been  chal- 
lenged if  we  had  not  asserted  of  them  that 
they  are  something  more  than  they  are.  They 


THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS.  13 

would  have  stood  on  the  same  unquestioned 
footing  as  the  other  biographical  notices  which 
have  come  down  to  us  from  antiquity,  if  we 
would  have  left  them  occupy  that  ground,  and 
they  would  have  delivered  their  witness  to 
Him  of  whom  they  speak  without  distracting 
any  attention  from  Him  to  themselves  ;  they 
would  have  remained  in  their  joyful  self- 
effacement,  anonymous,  unpretentious,  point- 
ing with  simple  unanimity  of  heart  to  Him. 
Nothing  better  could  be  wished  for  them  than 
that  they  might  come  to  us  afresh,  among  the 
writings  of  Josephus  and  Philo,  or  side  by  side 
with  Seneca  and  Suetonius,  asking  us  simply 
to  examine  them  as  writings  of  antiquity ;  and 
immediately  the  surpassing  splendor  of  their 
contents  would  take  captive  this  present  age, 
as  it  did  that  Second  Century  in  which  they 
first  became  widely  known. 

But  it  may  be  said,  apart  from  all  extrava- 
gant claims  which  have  been  made  for  the 
verbal  and  infallible  inspiration  of  the  writ- 
ings, the  miraculous  element  in  them  would 
have  ensured  their  rejection  by  modern  scien- 
tific minds.  Is  this,  however,  quite  so  certain 
as  it  seems  t  When  a  scientifically  trained 
man  is  asked  in  a  bare  and  bald  way  to  ac- 
cept a  miracle  like  that  of  feeding  the  Five 


14  THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS. 

Thousand  on  the  ground  that  a  document  is 
divinely  inspired,  it  is  quite  possible  that  he 
may  inquire  very  severely  into  the  inspiration 
of  the  document,  and  when  it  appears  that  the 
belief  in  its  inspiration  rests  only  on  an  un- 
supported dogma,  may  impatiently  push  aside 
the  document  and  the  miracle  which  it  records. 
But  supposing  he  is  asked  to  take  up  these 
biographical  documents  and  to  form  a  fair 
conception  of  the  Person  described  in  them, 
to  piece  together  His  teaching,  His  conduct, 
the  effect  of  His  work.  His  influence  in  sub- 
sequent history,  and  then  to  consider  whether 
He  is  not  Himself  a  Supernatural  Fact,  a 
Being  who  in  His  uniqueness  presents  Him- 
self as  a  revelation  of  God,  it  is  by  no  means 
a  foregone  conclusion  that  our  scientific  man, 
supposing  him  to  be  perfectly  candid  and 
logical,  will  dismiss  the  miracles  in  that  sum- 
mary way ;  it  is  not  impossible  that  he  may 
regard  the  miracles,  in  the  light  of  the  Per- 
son, not  only  as  probable,  but  as  inevitable. 

The  settled  a  priori  conviction  that  a  super- 
natural manifestation  of  God  to  His  creatures 
is  impossible  cannot  of  course  be  met  by  any 
argument  or  any  proof.  If  a  man  has  once 
accepted  it  as  an  axiom  his  mind  is  no  longer 
open  to  any  processes  of  reasoning,  and  even 


THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS.  15 

tangible  facts  presented  to  him  as  proof 
would  only  be  thrust  aside  as  illusions.  It 
is  a  condition  of  mind  parallel  to  that  of  one 
who  has  set  his  heart  against  his  own  child, 
and  is  further  exasperated  by  every  attempt 
at  reconciliation,  interpreting  every  advance 
of  affection  or  desire  as  an  added  proof  of 
perversity,  and  a  new  ground  of  displeasure. 
But  the  point  to  be  remembered  is  this,  that 
where  the  scientific  mind  is  still  open  and  not 
committed  to  this  irrational  prejudice,  the 
most  probable  way  of  convincing  it  is  to  pre- 
sent these  records  of  the  life  of  Jesus  simply 
as  records,  on  the  ground  of  their  admitted 
authenticity  of  date  and  scope  and  authorship, 
claiming  for  them  nothing  more  than  they 
claim  for  themselves,  and  then  to  leave  the 
story  to  produce  its  own  effect.  Immediately 
the  candid  and  logical  mind  is  struck  by  the 
Person  presented  in  the  records.  Following 
out  the  influence  of  the  life  in  the  history  of 
the  world,  he  feels  the  necessity  of  explaining 
the  results  which  flowed  from  a  cause  so  ap- 
parently simple.  And  as  he  comes  to  grapple 
seriously  with  the  problem  he  is  led  to  admit 
the  supernaturalness  of  Jesus,  and  incident- 
ally the  possibility  of  His  miraculous  works 
and  His  Resurrection,  in  order  to  escape  the 


i6  THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS. 

hopeless  mental  predicament  in  which  he  must 
be  landed  if  he  denies  them. 

But  while  we  may  fearlessly  contend  for 
the  authenticity  and  historical  veracity  of 
these  three  memoirs,  it  is  obvious  to  any 
reader  who  carefully  compares  them  with  one 
another  that  they  are  subject  to  many  of  the 
infirmities  which  are  incident  to  all  human 
compositions  and  to  all  human  testimony. 
Even  in  so  vital  a  matter  as  the  Beatitudes 
of  the  Kingdom  the  first  and  third  evangel- 
ists give  decidedly  different  versions.  In  de- 
scribing the  cure  of  a  blind  man  at  Jericho 
one  account  represents  the  single  blind  man 
as  two.  The  very  inscription  on  the  Cross  is 
differently  worded  by  the  different  writers. 
And,  when  we  come  to  the  records  of  the 
Resurrection,  every  careful  student  is  aware 
how  difficult  it  is  to  piece  the  several  versions 
together  into  anything  like  a  consistent  nar- 
rative. But  when  we  have  frankly  admitted 
and  firmly  grasped  the  fact  that  these  are 
memoirs,  such  recollections  of  the  events  as 
would  be  current  among  the  disciples  of  the 
first  and  second  generation  after  Jesus,  these 
marks  of  ordinary  biographical  and  historical 
writings  will  occasion  the  believer  no  diffi- 
culty, and  will  not  allow  the  unbeliever  to 


THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS.  17 

question  the  substantial  truth  of  the  record 
as  a  whole.  Here  is  an  illustration  ready  to 
hand.  Archibald  Forbes,  the  great  war  cor- 
respondent, who  was  present  at  the  battle  of 
Sedan  on  September  i  and  2,  1870,  mentions 
how  completely  at  variance  the  several  ac- 
counts of  the  battle  are.  After  the  lapse  of 
twenty-two  years  it  is  impossible  to  deter- 
mine with  accuracy  innumerable  points  of 
detail.  The  eye-witnesses,  the  official  reports, 
the  notes  of  correspondents,  disagree.  The 
order  of  events,  the  precise  time  of  the  sev- 
eral incidents,  the  exact  number  of  people 
present  on  a  given  occasion,  cannot  be  deter- 
mined. And  yet  what  person  would  be  fool- 
ish enough  to  question  the  historic  fact  of 
Sedan  because  of  these  divergent  testimo- 
nies }  The  battle  was  fought ;  the  German 
Empire  of  to-day,  and  the  sore  feeling  in 
France  about  Alsace  and  Lorraine,  are  wit- 
nesses which  would  outweigh  a  thousand  dis- 
crepancies in  the  narrative.  And  so  it  is 
with  the  accounts  of  the  Resurrection.  The 
great  fact  is -not  disturbed  by  the  somewhat 
incoherent  description  of  its  incidents.  The 
power  of  the  Risen  One  ;  the  world  trans- 
formed by  His  influence ;  myriads  of  living 
persons  who   are   conscious   of  being   risen 


i8  THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS. 

with  Christ  through  faith  in  His  resurrection 
which  happened  centuries  ago,  would  out- 
weigh many  more  difiiculties  than  are  actually 
found  in  the  narrative. 

We  may  regard  with  a  certain  detachment 
of  feeling  the  fierce  discussions  about  points 
of  detail  in  the  Gospels.  It  is  quite  possible 
we  may  say  that  St.  Luke,  for  example,  may 
have  made  a  blunder  about  the  date  of  Qui- 
rinius'  procuratorship  of  Syria,*  and  have 
supposed  that,  because  he  was  commissioner 
for  the  enrolment  of  names  in  the  year  when 

*Mommsen  {Res  gestcB  Augusti,  125)  indulges  in  a  sneer 
at  the  theologians  who  try  to  show  that  this  census  took  place 
at  all  in  the  year  4  B.C.  And  for  this  a  recent  writer  in 
France,  Pere  Didon,  takes  him  to  task  (see  Jesus  Christ, 
App.  A,,  p.  817)  ;  but  this  brilliant  Catholic  author  furnishes 
fresh  material  for  the  historian's  sarcasm  when  he  tries  to 
show  the  clause  in  Luke  ii.  i,  meant,  "When  Quirinius  was 
the  special  commissioner  for  the  enrolment  in  Syria."  No 
doubt,  as  Meyer  shows  in  his  commentary  on  the  passage, 
that  is  the  actual  fact,  but  that  is  not  what  St.  Luke  says.  He 
says  that  the  enrolment  was  made  while  Quirinius  was  the 
presses  of  Syria  ;  and  that  position  he  did  not  hold  till  ten  years 
afterwards.  It  is  the  perversity  of  the  false  dogmatism,  on  the 
subject  of  inspiration  which  leads  even  a  candid  mind  like 
Pere  Didon  to  rescue  the  historical  accuracy  of  Luke  by  main- 
taining that  his  words,  which  say  one  thing,  distinctly  mean 
another.  On  this  method  of  interpretation  all  writers  are  in- 
fallible. If  one  attributes  an  event  of  1834  to  Queen  Victoria's 
reign,  it  may  be  justified  as  meaning  that  it  means  the  fifteenth 
year  of  her  age,  though  King  William  was  on  the  throne. 


THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS.  19 

Q.  Sentius  Saturninus  was  the  presses  of 
Syria,  he  was  already  presses  himself,  though 
history  shows  us  that  he  did  not  occupy  that 
position  until  ten  years  later,  viz.,  6-1 1  A.D. 
The  birth  of  our  Lord  at  the  time  of  that  en- 
rolment is  not  discredited  because  an  author, 
writing  half  a  century  later,  had  forgotten,  or 
had  no  document  at  hand  to  show,  that  Qui- 
rinius  was  not  at  the  time  Augustus'  legatiis 
for  the  government  of  Syria,  but  only  his 
agent  for  the  holding  of  a  provincial  census. 
The  idea  that  the  Holy  Ghost  would  supply 
a  writer  with  an  accurate  chronology,  and 
would  make  careful  historical  research  un- 
necessary, or  correct  the  errors  where  the 
research  had  been  insufficient,  is  one  entirely 
imported  into  the  question  by  irresponsible 
dreamers.  The  preface  of  St.  Luke's  own 
Gospel  shows  that  he  never  entertained  such 
an  idea  ;  and  we  may  surmise  that  if  he  him- 
self were  confronted  with  the  facts  which  are 
known  to  us,  and  asked  to  explain  his  state- 
ment, "this  enrolment  was  made  when  Qui- 
rinius  was  governor  of  Syria,"  he  would  say  at 
once,  "  I  made  a  mistake  ;  of  course  his  pree- 
sieiium  of  Syria  did  not  begin  till  ten  years 
later." 

But  we  may  pass  now  to  the  second  point 


20  THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS. 

which  may  be  advanced  to  reassure  the 
trembling  believer  who  thinks  that  we  are 
taking  away  his  Lord  because  we  have  no 
ground  for  asserting  that  the  evangelists  are 
infallible.  The  truth  of  the  picture  is  guar- 
anteed not  by  the  writers  who  depict  the  life 
of  Jesus,  but  by  the  picture  itself.  A  few 
flaws  in  the  plate  or  in  the  printing  of  the 
cartes  do  not  affect  the  image  which  the  light 
draws  in  a  photograph.  No  fallibility  of  the 
witnesses,  no  infirmity  of  their  memory  or  of 
their  pen,  can  materially  affect  the  picture 
which,  as  it  seems  almost  involuntarily,  they 
present  of  their  Lord.  Their  simplicity,  their 
artlessness — nay,  we  might  almost  say  their 
rusticity,  against  which  clever  critics  have  fre- 
quently railed,  are  themselves  the  guarantee 
that  they  are  simply  telling  what  they  saw 
and  handled.  They  could  not  have  invented, 
for  it  is  all  they  can  do  to  imperfectly  depict, 
that  Person,  His  matchless  beauty  and  good- 
ness, and  the  power  which  breathed  from  His 
word  and  work.  The  supreme  value  of  these 
very  humble  witnesses  is  that  with  all  their 
minor  divergences,  and  with  all  their  obvious 
limitations  of  understanding  and  expression, 
they  do  put  us  at  a  point  of  view  from  which 
we  can  with  unclouded  eyes  see  Jesus,  as  He 


THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS.  21 

came  and  passed  through  the  few  brief  years 
of  His  earthly  life.  Thanks  to  them  and 
to  God's  Spirit,  working  through  them,  im- 
pelling them  to  write  and  quickening  their 
memory,  we  find  ourselves  at  small  disad- 
vantage as  compared  with  those  who  saw 
with  their  eyes  and  heard  with  their  ears 
Jesus  in  the  flesh. 

Now  it  is  this  Person,  the  tout  ensemble  of 
His  life  and  character,  which  is  the  great 
Revelation  of  God.  It  is  this  Person  who, 
patiently  studied  and  understood,  seems  to 
step  out  of  the  simple  pages  and  approach 
the  reader  with  a  majesty  which  commands, 
and  a  tenderness  which  allures,  all  but  the 
hardest  and  most  corrupt  of  human  hearts. 
Men  brought  up  like  John  Stuart  Mill  in  a 
traditional  contempt  for  the  religion  of  Jesus 
have  even  in  a  time  of  most  unimaginative 
materialism  been  arrested  by  the  Person  in 
these  Gospels  and  constrained  to  say  that 
they  could  think  of  no  better  rule  of  life  than 
so  to  act  as  would  win  the  approval  of  Jesus. 
Light-hearted  litterateurs  like  Ernest  Renan 
have,  along  the  lines  of  simple  historical  in- 
quiry, met  the  Person  in  these  Gospels  and 
been  compelled  to  utter  a  cry  of  admiration 
and  love,  and  to  sing  His  praises  in  prose, 


22  THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS. 

which  owing  to  the  subject  seems  to  rise  into 
verse,  with  an  ardour  which  would  evidently 
pass  into  faith  but  for  the  arbitrary  presup- 
position in  the  mind  of  the  investigator  that 
whatever  in  the  great  Person  is  Divine  and 
therefore  saving,  must  be  quietly  put  aside  as 
incredible.  And  men  who  have  not  been 
poisoned  by  the  baseless  dogma  of  Science 
that  the  Supernatural  does  not  exist,  and 
therefore  all  that  is  supernatural  in  Jesus  is 
fiction,  men  who  with  open  heart  have  sub- 
mitted themselves  to  the  impression  which 
the  Person  of  the  Gospels  makes  have  found 
themselves  obliged  to  exclaim  with  one  or 
another  of  the  disciples  in  the  record,  now, 
"  Depart  from  me,  for  I  am  a  sinful  man,  O 
Lord ; "  now,  "  Thou  art  Christ,  the  Son  of 
the  living  God  ; "  now,  **  Lord,  to  whom  shall 
we  go  ?  for  thou  hast  the  words  of  eternal 
life;"  now,  after  a  moment  of  misgiving  or 
doubt,  "  My  Lord  and  my  God  ; "  and  now  in 
a  passion  of  surrender,  "  Lord,  thou  knowest 
all  things,  thou  knowest  that  I  love  thee." 
It  would  be  vain  to  make  an  attempt  to 
enumerate  all  the  people  on  whom  the  Gospels 
have  produced  this  powerful  effect.  The  Per- 
son in  the  written  pages  speaks  to  them  as  a 
real  and  living  voice,  and  sways  them  as  a 


THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS.  23 

seen  and  acknowledged  Lord.  The  words  are 
read — "  Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labor  and 
are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest " : 
we  lose  sight  of  the  book  and  of  the  writer, 
we  attend  only  to  Him  who  speaks.  We  come 
to  Him,  and  He  gives  us  rest. 

Now  it  is  not  a  little  extraordinary  that  a 
vehicle  apparently  so  inartistic  and  so  incom- 
plete should  produce  such  an  effect  on  follow- 
ing generations  of  men.  We  can  point  to  no 
other  records  of  a  life,  even  though  they  may 
be  far  more  finished,  more  detailed,  more  ex- 
act, which  have  the  vital  result  of  bringing  us 
into  spiritual  contact  with  the  Person  of 
whom  they  speak.  Many  of  us  have  read 
with  tearful  eyes  the  Memorabilia  of  Socrates, 
or  the  great  description  which  the  gifted 
disciple  gives  of  his  master's  death  in  the 
Phcedo ;  but  while  we  lovingly  admire  the 
noble  and  indomitable  sage,  it  does  not  occur 
to  us  to  come  to  him  ;  indeed,  it  did  not  occur 
to  him  to  invite  us.  Or  to  take  a  much  more 
modern  instance,  we  have  studied  that  curious 
and  fascinating  picture  of  a  beautiful  soul 
drawn  from  within,  th.Q  Journal  of  Aniiel ;  his 
exquisite  words  haunt  the  ear,  and  the  story 
of  his  pensive  life,  his  pure  meditations,  his 
wise  and  critical  observations,  the  tragic  over- 


24  THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS. 

clouding  of  his  declining  days,  touches  us 
with  a  tender  human  sympathy,  and  makes 
us  reach  out  yearning  hands  of  brotherhood 
to  his  melancholy  shade ;  but  which  of  us 
thinks  of  coming  to  him?  Wise  counsellor 
and  sober  teacher  in  many  delicate  issues  of 
life  we  may  admit  him  to  be,  but  he  does  not 
draw  us.  He  dies  a  kind  of  silent  martyrdom, 
but  it  gives  us  no  hope  in  our  hours  of  need. 
The  marvellous  and  inexplicable  fact  about 
the  Person  of  the  Gospels  is,  that  it  draws 
us;  we  find  ourselves  unconsciously  in  the 
crowd  trying  to  touch  the  hem  of  His  gar- 
ment ;  we  involuntarily  take  a  place  at  His 
feet  and  feel  that  we  have  chosen  the  good 
part  which  can  not  be  taken  away  ;  His  death 
told  in  simple  but  impressive  detail  holds  us 
with  a  singular  spell ;  like  the  little  children 
to  whom  Robert  Elsmere  tells  the  story  of 
the  Cross,  we  break  into  sobs  and  tears — we 
know  it  is  for  us  ;  we  go  to  the  tomb,  and  un- 
like the  curiously  insensible  disciples,  we  feel 
that  it  was  not  possible  for  Him  to  be  holden 
of  death ;  the  brief  cry,  "  He  is  risen,"  pen- 
etrates our  heart  with  a  subtle  hope ;  He 
seems  risen  for  our  justification,  and  a  quick- 
ening faith  enables  us  to  be  crucified  and 
buried  with  Him,  and  to  rise  also  with  Him 
to  newness  of  life. 


THE  BiEMOIRS  OF  JESUS.  25 

We  take  up  these  dear  records  of  His  life 
and  death  again  and  again  ;  we  read  and  re- 
read the  words  that  He  spoke;  we  meditate 
afresh  upon  His  many  works  of  healing  and 
mercy,  His  few  works  of  severity  and  judg- 
ment. What  is  there  in  them  ?  We  thought 
we  knew  them  almost  by  heart ;  they  are 
familiar  to  us  as  the  sky  and  the  woods  and 
the  sea ;  but  they  are  always  new.  Some 
miracle  or  sign  which  once  seemed  difficult  to 
believe  is  constantly  passing  into  the  category 
of  the  credible  as  our  understanding  of  Him 
rounds  and  grows.  If  there  are  some  things 
which  still  seem  to  us  incredible  we  can  leave 
them  cheerfully  aside,  for  we  count  it  an 
irreverence  to  attribute  to  the  Person  whom 
we  are  getting  to  know  anything  which  is  out 
of  harmony  with  the  character  as  we  know  it. 
The  Cross  is  always  breaking  upon  us  in  new 
aspects  and  new  phases,  like  a  mountain  peak 
which  is  eternal,  but  never  the  same  for  two 
hours  together  in  the  passing  of  cloud  or  the 
outbreak  of  sunshine,  the  gathering  of  the 
treasures  of  the  snow  or  the  unsealing  of  the 
fountains  which  are  to  water  the  vale.  His 
words  too — they  are  spirit  and  life,  and  we  are 
always  saying  with  a  fresh  emphasis,  "  Never 
man  spake  like   this  man."      Some    simple 


26  THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS. 

apophthegm  of  His  is  constantly  piercing 
down  to  the  roots  of  our  life,  or  some  lovely 
parable  will  quietly  unveil  a  spacious  land- 
scape of  unnoticed  truth.  We  study  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  for  a  lifetime,  and  in 
the  second  sight  and  brightening  intuition  of 
an  old  age  which  has  passed  from  godliness 
to  godliness,  we  begin  to  perceive  with  awe 
that  we  have  understood  but  the  surface  of 
it,  and  have  never  sounded  its  depths.  We 
turn  back  again  and  again  to  His  summary 
of  the  Law  and  the  Prophets,  and  with  every 
sorrowful  failure,  every  painful  discovery  how 
little  we  love,  how  little  we  seem  capable  of 
loving,  we  come  back  to  Him  and  say.  Master, 
Thou  hast  well  said  :  to  love  God  with  all  our 
hearts  and  our  neighbor  as  ourselves  is  the 
clearness  and  joy  of  heaven;  Lord,  teach  us 
to  love.  And  how  often,  when  with  a  foolish 
optimism  and  a  shallow  misconception  of  the 
solemn  facts  which  form  the  underground  of 
life,  we  have  thought  to  minimize  or  explain 
away  some  of  His  searching  severities,  His 
words  about  the  fire  which  is  not  quenched 
and  the  worm  which  does  not  die,  we  have 
been  constrained  to  come  humbly  back  to 
His  feet  with  the  surprised  confession  that 
He  knew  best ! 


THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS.  27 

Now  it  is  this  Person  of  the  Gospels — and 
not  merely  the  sketchy  portrait  of  Him^- 
which  is  the  great  revelation  of  God.  "  All 
things  have  been  delivered  unto  me  of  my 
Father,  and  no  one  knoweth  the  Son  save  the 
Father ;  neither  doth  any  know  the  Father 
save  the  Son,  and  he  to  whomsoever  the  Son 
willeth  to  reveal  him  "  (Matt.  xi.  27).  It  is 
the  Person  who  could  say  this,  who  could 
realize,  too,  what  He  said,  that  strikes  all 
criticism  dumb.  All  that  is  told  about  Him 
gathers  round  what  He  is.  Miracle  and  sign 
are  not  given  as  proofs  of  what  He  is,  but 
they  seem  to  flow  by  a  kind  of  inner  neces- 
sity from  Him  who  uttered  those  wonderful 
words.  We  do  not  believe  in  the  Divinity  of 
Jesus  because  of  the  miraculous  conception 
mentioned  in  the  first  chapter  of  Matthew ; 
rather  we  are  forced  by  the  conviction  of  His 
Divinity  to  believe  in  that  manner  of  His 
birth.  If  He  was  born  in  the  common  way 
of  human  generation  the  miracle  of  what  He 
is  seems  too  transcendent  for  human  faith. 

It  is  indeed  a  strange  conceit  that  any  arti- 
ficial guarantee  is  needed  for  the  Person  pre- 
sented in  these  Gospels.  To  prop  His  au- 
thenticity by  a  dogma  about  the  infallibility 
of  the  evangelists  is  like  trying  to  shore  up 


28  THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS. 

Mont  Blanc,  and  to  keep  it  from  falling  with 
a  few  pine  logs  hewn  from  its  ridges.  We 
may  joyfully  anticipate  the  day  when  Chris- 
tians will  surrender  their  puerile  apologetics, 
their  attempts  to  verify  the  eternal  Truth  by 
a  paltry  fiction  which  is  pricked  like  a  bubble 
by  the  first  touch  of  inquiry. 

Non  tali  auxilio,  non  defensoribus  istis 
Tempus  eget. 

Some  day  we  shall  let  the  evangelists  again 
teM  their  own  tale,  without  our  impertinent 
prelude  of  tales  about  them ;  and  an  aston- 
ished world  will  see  again  in  these  Memoirs 
of  Jesus  the  unmistakable  reflection  of  the 
Jesus  whom  the  disciples  saw. 

But  still  the  strongest  answer  to  a  timor- 
ous belief  remains.  The  abiding  reason  why 
the  frank  admission  of  what  the  Gospels  are 
cannot  take  away  our  Lord  is  this :  the  Per- 
son of  whom  the  Gospels  tell  is  nothing  if 
He  is  not  a  living  and  active  presence  now. 
All  that  is  said  of  Him,  and  all  that  He  is 
reported  to  have  said,  is  naught  unless  He 
gave  the  distinct  promise  that  wherever  two 
or  three  were  gathered  in  His  name  there 
He  would  be  in  the  midst  of  them.  The 
Gospels  are  mere  waste-paper,  or  at  least  of 
no   more   practical  religious   value  than   the 


THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS.  29 

Memorabilia  of  Xenophon  or  the  Journal  of 
Amid,  unless  we  may  accept  literally  the  as- 
sertion, "  Lo,  I  am  with  you  always,  even  to 
the  end  of  the  world."  Did  He  say  that  ? 
Does  He  fulfil  that  saying  ?  That  is  the 
vital  question,  and  not,  whether  Matthew 
was  a  sacred  penman  miraculously  guaran- 
teed against  the  possibility  of  error.  Now  we 
may  conceive  the  three  Gospels  as  in  effect 
three  witnesses  from  the  age  after  the  Res- 
urrection, eagerly  asserting  that  the  Lord 
had  risen,  had  appeared  to  one  or  another  of 
His  disciples,  had  finally  disappeared,  but 
only  on  such  terms  that  His  presence  with 
His  people  would  be  perpetual  and  unbroken. 
If  the  Gospels  in  asserting  this  are  main- 
taining a  lie,  let  them  be  ruthlessly  thrown 
aside.  Some  good  Christians  seem  to  think 
that  the  only  proof  they  have  of  the  asser- 
tion is  the  statement  of  the  evangelists,  and 
their  timid  anxiety  to  maintain  the  infalli- 
bility of  the  Gospels  arises  from  a  fearful 
conviction  that  if  those  books  were  lost  the 
Living  Chris-t  would  be  lost.  Orthodoxy  of 
this  type,  it  is  almost  unnecessary  to  repeat,  i 
rests  on  a  profound  and  radical  unbelief.  Its 
champions  are  sceptics  who  can  attach  no 
meaning   to   the   great    saying,    "  I  am  with 


30  THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS. 

you,"  except  this,  that  a  written  word  is 
with  them,  a  Book  infallibly  inspired  and 
miraculously  preserved.  But  what  we  may 
call  the  orthodoxy  of  the  first  Christian  cen- 
tury— the  century  before  the  New  Testament 
was  written — is  becoming  again  the  ortho- 
doxy of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  the  century 
in  which  the  cramped  doctrine  of  Biblical 
infallibility  has  become  doubtful.  Men  are 
beginning  to  believe .  again  the  mighty  truth 
that  Jesus  lives  and  is  with  them  even  now. 
A  hard  and  incredulous  materialism,  created 
largely  by  a  hard  and  essentially  sceptical 
Christianity,  says  still  with  a  sneer,  Where 
is  your  Lord  .-*  Show  Him  to  us  if  He  in- 
deed be  alive.  And  we  answer  not  by  an 
appeal  to  documents  which  unbelief  will  not 
accept  as  an  authority,  but  by  an  appeal  to 
facts  which  unbelief  itself  may  ignore  but 
cannot  deny.  We  may  boldly  venture  all  on 
the  fact  \\s2.\.  Jesiis  lives  a7id  is  among  tcs  nozv. 
If  the  doubter  will  not  take  the  trouble  to 
examine  the  details  of  religious  history,  if  he 
will  not  test  the  reality  of  Christ's  saving 
presence  in  the  lives  which  have  been  re- 
deemed by  Him,  in  the  miserable  rescued  by 
Him  from  their  misery,  in  the  bad  turned 
by  Him  into  the  good — we  must  at  least  in- 


THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS.  31 

sist  upon  it  that  he  should  try  for  himself 
whether  Jesus  lives  before  he  commits  him- 
self to  his  arbitrary  negation.  The  first  apos- 
tles went  to  convert  the  world  not  with  a 
New  Testament  in  their  hands,  for  it  was 
only  their  labors  which  resulted  in  the  pro- 
duction of  the  New  Testament,  but  with  the 
risen  Christ  in  their  hearts,  and  with  a  power 
not  their  own,  which  was  able  to  bring  Jews 
and  Gentiles  alike  into  a  personal  contact 
with  this  living  Saviour.  That  is  precisely 
the  method  which  is  needed  to-day.  If  these 
pages  fall  under  the  eye  of  an  unbeliever,  of 
one  who  is  a  stranger  to  Christ,  they  have  a 
message  for  him,  direct  and  simple  as  that 
which  Peter  preached  at  Pentecost.  This 
message  thrusts  aside  as  irrelevant  the  thou- 
sand and  one  pleas  and  objections  which  un- 
belief is  accustomed  to  urge,  and  comes  at 
once  to  the  point.  Jesus,  the  living  Saviour, 
bids  you  come  unto  Him  with  the  promise 
that  He  will  save  you.  ''But  how?"  you 
say;  "I  cannot  see  Him."  No,  but  as  a 
spiritual  presence  He  is  at  hand  and  acces-  • 
sible  to  your  spirit.  "  But,"  you  object,  "  I 
do  not  believe  in  His  Divinity."  No,  but 
what  He  asks  is  that  you  should  believe  in 
Him,  and  He  puts  no  metaphysical  tests  in 


32  THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS. 

the  way  of  your  accepting  Him.  "But  I  do 
not  believe  in  the  miracles,  the  story  of  the 
birth,  and  the  rest."  He  is  here,  not  speak- 
ing of  these,  but  of  His  power  to  save  you; 
will  you  come  unto  Him  that  you  may  re- 
ceive life  ?  If  you  will^  he  gives  you  life ; 
if  you  will  not,  you  are  without  life.  "  But," 
still  you  exclaim,  "  I  do  not  believe  in  the 
atonement."  When  He  bids  you  come  unto 
Him  He  does  not  demand  a  theological  defi- 
nition or  the  acceptance  of  a  religious  form- 
ula. He  says  that  He  came  to  serve,  and 
to  give  His  life  a  ransom  for  many.  He  says 
that  His  blood  was  shed  for  you  and  for  many 
for  the  remission  of  sins.  The  question  is> 
will  you  trust  the  love  of  God,  will  you  ac- 
cept the  remission  of  sins  which  Jesus  offers, 
will  you  take  your  position  as  a  pardoned 
and  reconciled  child  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ  t 
Where  a  man  has  learned  his  own  weakness 
and  sinfulness  and  need,  where  in  conse- 
quence he  humbles  himself  as  a  little  child, 
he  comes  to  Jesus  in  one  brief  and  heartfelt 
prayer.  Jesus  is  unseen,  but  His  presence  is 
acknowledged,  and  He  is  received.  And  as 
many  as  receive  Him  get  power  to  become 
the  sons  of  God,  even  as  many  as  believe  on 
His   name.      Now,  the  whole  of  our  subse- 


THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS.  33 

qiient  investigation  of  the  New  Testament 
writings  will  tend  to  show  that  the  very  es- 
sence of  this  Gospel  was  the  proclamation 
of  a  living  Christ,  whose  living  power  was 
ordinarily  manifested  in  the  persons  of  men 
and  women  who  gave  admission  to  Him.  If 
the  value  of  these  first  three  memoirs  of  the 
Lord  is  that  they  present  us  with  a  tolerably 
accurate  picture  of  Jesus  as  He  lived  and 
died  upon  earth,  and  rose  again  from  the 
grave,  and  ascended  into  heaven,  they  are 
only  the  introduction  to  a  series  of  writings 
which  derive  all  their  value  from  the  witness 
they  give  to  this  resurrection  life  of  Jesus. 
"  And  it  came  to  pass,  while  He  blessed  them 
he  parted  from  them,  and  was  carried  up  into 
heaven.  And  they  worshipped  him,  and  re- 
turned to  Jerusalem  with  great  joy,  and  were 
continually  in  the  temple,  blessing  God." 
That  is  how  the  third  and  latest  of  the  three 
closes  the  narrative.  The  Risen  One  has  left 
His  disciples,  and  yet  He  has  not  left  them 
disconsolate.  There  is  an  attitude  of  expec- 
tation ;  there  rs  a  breathless  pause.  He  has 
gone,  but  He  is  not  far  away ;  He  will  be 
with  us  still.  The  following  books  of  the 
New  Testament  show  in  a  variety  of  ways 
how  this  expectation  is  fulfilled.     If  the  first 


34  THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS. 

three  Gospels  are  a  revelation  of  God  in  the 
person,  the  human  person,  of  Jesus,  they  lead 
immediately  up  to  the  revelation  of  Jesus 
Himself,  prolonged  in  the  work,  the  experi- 
ence, the  faith  of  His  chosen  disciples  and 
their  successors.  The  memoirs  of  Jesus  were 
closed,  nothing  more  could  be  added ;  noth- 
ing has  been  added  except  a  few  trifling  rec- 
ollections preserved  by  St.  Paul,  and  the 
treasure  of  reminiscence  in  the  Gospel  of 
St.  John.  The  brief  beautiful  life  on  earth 
was  rounded  and  set  like  a  triple  cameo-image 
in  a  simple  frame,  to  last  as  long  as  man  is  on 
the  earth.  But  the  saving  life  of  Jesus  was 
only  just  beginning ;  it  manifested  itself  in 
certain  normal  and  sufficient  v/ays  in  the 
apostolic  days,  and  the  New  Testament  writ- 
ings are  the  record  of  it.  It  still  manifests 
itself,  for  the  most  part  strictly  along  the 
lines  of  that  New  Testament  literature,  but 
by  no  means  necessarily  confined  to  them. 
The  revelation  of  God  in  the  face  of  Christ 
Jesus  is  perpetuated  in  the  life  of  the  Church, 
the  saints  in  whom  He  has  dwelt,  the  teachers, 
the  martyrs,  the  heroes,  whom  He  has  in- 
spired. And  by  a  not  unnatural  figure  the 
whole  sum  total  of  redeemed  beings  in  whom 
He   has    manifested,   or  will   still    manifest. 


THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS.  35 

Himself  to  the  end  of  time,  may  be  treated 
as  the  body,  the  limbs,  of  which  He  is  the 
head. 

■  Perhaps  it  was  with  some  glimmering  con- 
sciousness of  this  that  one  of  the  evangelists, 
the  one  who  echoed  Peter's  teaching,  gave  to 
his  brief  record  of  the  human  life  the  singu- 
lar title,  ''The  begiiining  of  the  Gospel  of 
Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God."  A  beginning 
indeed,  and  yet  if  we  may  be  pardoned  the 
paradox,  a  complete  beginning. 

In  closing  this  chapter  it  may  be  permissi- 
ble to  appeal  to  the  guardians  of  the  letter  of 
Scripture,  and  to  ask  them  whether  the  truth 
does  not  begin  to  dawn  upon  them  that  God 
has  provided  a  more  substantial  protection  of 
His  revelation  than  the  traditional  dogmat- 
isms which  once  seemed  strong,  but  now  are 
sufficiently  worm-eaten  and  insecure.  Would 
not  believers  in  Christ  commend  Him  best 
to  the  world  if  they  really  believed  in  Him, 
and  ventured  to  fall  back  on  the  promises 
which  He  has  given.?  Are  believers  quite 
sure  that  they  are  not  themselves  the  main 
cause  of  the  world's  unbelief }  Have  they 
not  demanded  faith  in  a  book,  where  Christ 
meant  them  to  demand  faith  in  a  Person } 
Have  they  not  led  the  world  astray  in  a  weary 


36  THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS, 

conflict  about  literary  details,  with  dull  reiter- 
ation declaring  that  that  is  the  word  of  God 
which  is  not  the  word  of  God,  so  that  men 
have  not  seen  the  true  Word  of  God  that  was 
with  God  from  the  beginning,  and  became 
flesh,  and  tabernacled  amongst  us  ?  If  they 
would  only  understand  that  Jesus  lives,  and 
present  Him  living  to  the  weary  and  sinful 
humanity  around  them,  would  not  all  men  be 
drawn  to  Him  ? 


BS2569.8.H82 

The  memoirs  of  Jesus, 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  00013  5642 


